Ford Details Its Plan for Michigan Central Station

Ford made waves this week with its acquisition of Detroit’s defunct Michigan Central Station, and the company has now made public some of its plans for the structure, long considered the city’s most notorious architectural ruin. The announcements took place at an event with notable attendees including executive chairman Bill Ford and members of the Ford family, Ford president and CEO Jim Hackett, Detroit mayor Mike Duggan, U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, Wayne County executive Warren C. Evans, Detroit-reared rapper Big Sean and the Detroit Children’s Choir, numerous local entrepreneurs, luminaries, and Michigan governor Rick Snyder. It was quite the production.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Speaking from the stage, an enthusiastic Bill Ford explained how he had been talking with the Moroun family (former owners of the property) for some time, and with the arrival of tech-savvy new president and CEO Jim Hackett, the pieces just began to fall into place. Ford reiterated his remarks about earmarking the facility for the company’s autonomous and electric vehicles. He also talked up the design of urban mobility services and other solutions, including an open-platform Transportation Mobility Cloud to help manage information and transactions among numerous platforms, as well as smart vehicles, roads, parking facilities, and public transit. Ford said he hopes that existing tech companies and startups will share the automaker’s enthusiasm for the facility and open offices or tech centers in the building, fostering collaboration. Ford has trailed other manufacturers in laying groundwork and developing relationships with other companies in the arena of future mobility, so this is a big step in the right direction. In his speech, Bill Ford also detailed the company’s plans to renovate the station’s main floor as a community space with restaurants, vendors, and artisans, and with residential space above.

While nostalgia certainly plays a role in the purchase, statements made by Hackett referred to the station as a “knowledge cathedral,” and make it clear that the project is about the future: “What Rouge was to Ford in the industrial age, Corktown can be for Ford in the information age. This will be the kind of campus where the emerging economy thrives—a collaborative ecosystem of companies, educators, investors, and innovators,” Hackett said.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Tightknit communities with a strong identity can sometimes view the arrival of moneyed outsiders as an intrusion of sorts, but so far the Corktown neighborhood seems to be playing nice. One recent account of goodwill involves the return of the station’s long-lost clock from an anonymous thief/caretaker/preservationist turned benefactor who called the Henry Ford Museum saying only, “the clock wanted to go home,” and directed them to a vacant building where they could find it.

In addition to Michigan Central Station, Ford also purchased the former Detroit Public Schools Book Depository, two acres of vacant land, and the site of an old brass factory, in addition to the earlier purchase of another former factory in Corktown that is now home to Ford’s electric-vehicle and autonomous-vehicle business teams. In all, Ford expects to have up to 1.2 million square feet of office space in the area—enough room for 2500 Ford employees and another 2500 employees of partner companies. Speakers repeatedly made the point that attracting young creative and technical types is crucial to the future of Ford, and that the company believes having Michigan Central Station and the Corktown campus, as part of Detroit’s much ballyhooed renaissance, will help them find and retain talent.

The station renovation is tentatively scheduled to take four years to complete, but Ford wisely acknowledges that putting a due date on a project of this scale is virtually impossible and that it will come into sharper focus as the project progresses.

Before renovations begin, Ford is offering the public a chance to attend an open house at Michigan Central Station from June 22 to 24. Highlights of this complimentary tour include a small exhibit curated by the Detroit Historical Society, a preview of the History Channel documentary Detroit: Comeback City, and a small community area inside the station, highlighting local artists, entrepreneurs, and youth from the neighborhood.